Firefighter Gregory Buck, 37, met his wife when they were both students at nursing school, which he finished at the top of his class although he never practiced the profession. Two months after graduating, the FDNY called him up and he joined. That was 1995. 
Buck was a classically trained pianist who sometimes played for friends’ weddings. He was also a master carpenter. For many years he and his father had a custom cabinetry and furniture business. He and his wife had plans to one day start a business selling new and restored furniture that came out of his shop. Meanwhile they’d put in an offer on an old 1940s home they fell in love with in Grasmere. He was already planning the renovations. She closed on the house without him in November 2001. 
Although he kept it quiet, once his fellow firefighters learned he was studying at the Culinary Institute, they steered him towards the stove. To his wife, he was simply “the most talented person” she had ever known.